Unionization, disobedience, and naturalizing the belief that it is okay if less people in the North are working on projects in the South must be the central parts of transforming Global Health. In short, nothing in the South will dramatically change until collective action is taken in the North end/

Soft money financial systems are not invincible. They are a recent invention of the neoliberal university to cut costs. A more generative Global Health (and public health) research funding infrastructure is achievable, but only if who acts and what is considered viable action changes 11/

Thereby, “solidarity” by Northern actors takes on new meaning when the financial structures of Global Health are foregrounded. It is not enough to “follow” or “listen.” Transforming the field begins with how Northern faculty organize for what is just but potentially detrimental for them 10/

The prominent discourse of “follow the lead” of the South is then used as a crutch to defer responsibility for change when, really, change begins with them. Partners from the South are not in the rooms where dominating financial decisions of northern institutions are made. These elites are! 9/

Faculty thus see themselves at an impasse: they want to change, but think they can’t simply change a massive financial system that by doing so would harm them. The only option for them is to thus participate in “decolonization” in reformist ways and attack myriad actions to the word 8/

Elite American institutions, thus, structurally have no interest in “decolonization” beyond superficial rhetoric. They literally can’t be. To do so would be to destruct their own financial integrity. And if the money does not become redistributed, epistemic and structural dominance will continue 7/

The universities these schools of public health are a part of rely on them to either 1) fund themselves through soft money grant overheads and/or 2) help fund increasingly expensive undergraduate campuses through taking exorbitant in direct cost rates 6/

On one hand, they feel as though that it should be research partners in the South who get grant money: this is what has been established as fair and just. On the other, their jobs, livelihoods, and institutions DEPEND on disproportionate dominance of these grants 5/

But this is not simply because they have to spend much of their time working towards those ends—taking away from their ability to do work they see as actually impactful. It is because soft money in this moment of upheaval and rethinking creates a vital contradiction 4/

But in every conversation we had, it was money, financial systems, and frustrations with both that was most pertinent. “Soft money,” the most prevalent financial system in Global Health academia, is a system where faculty must chase grants to secure their livelihoods. Faculty, in brief, hate it 3/

This is the first of what will be a series of articles from Alice Bayingana and I from a qualitative/linguistic study conducted at an elite American school of public health. Our goal, in short, was to explore how elite Global Health actors use and understand the word “decolonization”… 2/